How "electoral depression" works, a technique used to push young black voters not to vote

By April Glaser - NBC News

In the forum with Joe Biden voters Thursday, Cedrick Humphrey, a young black man from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, asked a key question for what are some of the latest disinformation tactics applied down the stretch before the election.

"Many people believe that the real demographic change in this election will be

, not because they will vote for Trump, but because they will not vote at all," he said, adding that he shared this idea: "What do you have to do? tell young black voters that they see voting for him as endorsement of a system that continually fails to protect them? "

Biden responded by stressing the importance of voting and the need to give black Americans the means to

and their chances of accessing

[Follow our coverage on the presidential election]

The question Humphrey posed to the former vice president and current Democratic presidential candidate is part of a broader trend developed in recent weeks before the election.

Among all the disinformation campaigns circulating on social media and taking advantage of voters, a tactic that originated in the country has become particularly worrisome.

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Some black social media

, as well as black community groups on Facebook in more progressive positions than Biden and his running mate, Sen. Kamala Harris, are targeting black voters not so much with deception, but with a technique that experts call

This does not mean giving voters false information to push them not to go to the polls, as would be discrediting voting by mail through criticism of the postal service;

rather, with electoral depression the goal is to make people who would otherwise vote feel that

This technique is causing problems in particular for the

campaign

, while it is not being used as much with Republican voters, explains expert Jacquelyn Mason, a senior researcher at the nonprofit First Draft.

[Long lines at the start of the early voting phase in North Carolina, one of the key states in the elections]

"The lack of enthusiasm around a candidate can really contribute to interference," Mason said.

The expert added that since many progressive black voters might not be enthusiastic about voting for Biden, the electoral slump raises questions about

Memes and micro-influencers

Earlier this month, an Instagram account with more than 19,000 followers posted a video of a young black man asking a series of questions: "

Can we vote against police violence?" .

He answered himself: "The obvious answer is no."

And his conclusion was:

That video is one of thousands of posts in an increasingly popular genre of social media content, aimed at dissuading black voters from voting in this election.

One of the most prominent examples of electoral depression has been the

and her tax record during her tenure as San Francisco district attorney and later California attorney general.

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A meme that went viral this month featured a mosaic of people's faces that formed a portrait of the vice president candidate.

It was shared by black influencer accounts on social media.

The mosaic was supposed to be a composite image of "all the black men that he locked up and kept in prison after the date of his release."

It has been shared more than 23,000 times on Facebook without any warning to the side stating that the image is not really what it claims to be - a closer look reveals that the mosaic actually repeats the same faces over and over again.

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These tactics began to emerge before the 2016 election with a viral clip of Hillary Clinton, where in a speech she referred to young black men as

.

During that election period, Russian agents also created thousands of fake social media accounts targeting black Facebook users with advertisements based on their interest in Martin Luther King Jr, "Black is beautiful" ("Black is beautiful", in English), and the "African American Movement for Civil Rights (1954-68)".

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Many of those tactics have carried over into the current election season.

This month alone, Twitter banned a network of more than two dozen user accounts that spoke out as black Trump supporters, but they were actually profiles created with stock footage of black people or images of black people pulled from the news and recycled for give a veneer of authenticity to those fake accounts.

These accounts accumulated hundreds of thousands of retweets and followers before Twitter removed them.

While these examples are not explicitly electoral depression tactics, they are part of a

broader

that has focused on using black identity as a way to manipulate elections.

But this year, many of the memes and posts about electoral depression circulating on social media with the aim of dissuading black voters from voting are not based on completely false information.

What makes these narratives so compelling and difficult to unravel is that there

Mason said.

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The electoral depression targeting black communities on the internet is gathering momentum because, according to researchers, they come from accounts that people already have relationships with and appear to be authentic.

"Some of the tactics we are very concerned about and see the most are those of micro-influencers, like on Instagram Live," said Jiore Craig, vice president of GQR, a Democratic research firm, which advises campaigns on disinformation.

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These micro-influencers, who participate in the electoral depression, can have as little as 10 to 30,000 followers and often speak directly to the camera,

"They're talking about issues that represent alternatives to what any of the candidates are saying about the voting process and saying instead, 'Isn't this some kind of s ***?'

Asking the question is part of the strategy, "Craig added.

"It's a communication strategy, breaking down what appears to be a preconceived belief. The name of the game in so many ways is about the

," Craig said.

The ultimate goal is to get your audience to ask questions about the value of voting to your family or group of friends, turning your audience into messengers and making the concept more legitimate.

Rebuild trust

Some advocacy groups for black people are working to undo the electoral depression efforts with similar tactics, focusing on sharing information related to the people that voters trust.

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One group leading this work is the political action committee led by the online racial justice organization

, which for years has carried out advocacy campaigns targeting large networking platforms. social networks such as Facebook, where disinformation and hate speech flourish.

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This year the group is also working to

who are most likely to be the target of electoral depression efforts, in part through a grassroots volunteer program in which members are reaching out to friends and family members to encourage them to plan their vote.

One of the ways the group is creating a narrative about the importance of voting is by talking more about

in person and on social media, such as district attorney positions, which are also on the ballot in many communities in the United States. the whole country.

"While many, especially irregular black voters or voters who might be prone to not turning out, might not see the importance of electing a president and the impact on their lives, we are having a conversation with them about everyday decisions. taken by prosecutors who are causing harm in black communities, "said Arisha Hatch, vice president and campaign manager for

.

"And when we get into that conversation, their mindset starts to change."

Greater responsibility

In the past six months, the organization has been in multiple closed-door meetings with social media companies, such as Facebook, Google, and Twitter, to discuss what companies need to do to ensure their platforms are not being used to deprive the voting rights for black voters before the 2020 elections.

While those conversations have been helpful - Facebook has promised to expand the definition of content it bans because it engages in voter suppression -

is asking the company to enforce its policy changes consistently and transparently.

NBC News reported in August that Facebook has given a special exception to its rules against misinformation on conservative pages.

"

have a

in correcting some of the changes that we are seeing in how information moves," Hatch said.

"That not only influences public policy, it influences a more polarized culture that only leads to more traffic jams and more working class people being left out of the American dream."